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Post by Sparkle on Aug 16, 2004 13:26:20 GMT
I'm bored and need more books. I don't have time to go shopping until next weekend, so I'm going to buy things on ebay. Does anyone have any suggestions of books I should read? My personal library encompasses all sorts of stuff - fiction includes Chaucer, Shakespeare and other random Jacobean playwrights, the Brontes, Hardy, Gaskell, Orwell, and then stuff like Baddiel, Parsons, O'Farrell, Keyes. Non-fiction is mainly politics and feminism - Faludi, Wolf, Paxman etc.
Thanks in advance.
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Post by klee on Aug 16, 2004 13:50:23 GMT
Anything by . . .
Anne Tyler Muriel Spark Suzannah Dunn
The other month I ploughed my way through A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. 1800 pages (or something like that) but worth every second of it.
Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections comes very close to living up to its hype. Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible is also wonderful but will make you exceedingly unhappy and anti-colonialist (in a right-on way, of course).
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2004 14:05:44 GMT
Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections comes very close to living up to its hype. Please give me a short run-down of the last 100 pages. I lost it when I moved house, and clearly I didn't love it enough to buy another copy/join the library.
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Post by Sparkle on Aug 16, 2004 14:07:11 GMT
Please give me a short run-down of the last 100 pages. I lost it when I moved house, and clearly I didn't love it enough to buy another copy/join the library. Please give this rundown via PM! I've just bid for it on Ebay - thanks, Klee!
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Post by trollte on Aug 16, 2004 14:55:53 GMT
Beautifully written and heartbreaking. Treats a very sensitive subject (war atrocities) in a very human way. One of only two books to make me cry.
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Post by trollte on Aug 16, 2004 14:59:28 GMT
This was the other book that made me cry. I didn't think you could still get it, but you can! An epic, across a generation style thing. But the unrequited love is very heartbreaking in this.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2004 16:36:30 GMT
It's gay! Really, what more could you ask for? (PS: It's also good.)
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Post by max on Aug 18, 2004 20:29:25 GMT
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Post by Sparkle on Aug 26, 2004 16:19:39 GMT
I've read my first LowCulture recommended book! Klee - thank you for recommending Muriel Spark. I read The Driver's Seat on the train yesterday, and it was very good, though odd. I read Miss Jean Brodie several years ago and now I am going to re-read it.
I am now eagerly awaiting the delivery of my next batch of books, and then I shall report back!
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Post by smellslikesomeghost on Aug 26, 2004 22:35:48 GMT
Ooh, I want to reccomend you a book; "The trick is to keep breathing" by Janice Galloway. It's just superbly written, a beautifully sad picture of mind in turmoil. I think everyone should read it and then know that is how literary fiction should be.
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Post by Sparkle on Sept 1, 2004 8:26:43 GMT
Hi Max, Just finished Talking It Over, which I enjoyed greatly. I really liked the way it was narrated - switching between voices - and I liked that the secondary characters were given space to voice their monologues. There were no clear winners or losers in this book, I didn't think, as it was very hard to sympathise fully with any of the protagonists. I'm really looking forward to reading the sequel. Thanks for that recommendation! Sparkle xx
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Post by klee on Sept 1, 2004 8:52:19 GMT
Ooh, I want to reccomend you a book; "The trick is to keep breathing" by Janice Galloway. It's just superbly written, a beautifully sad picture of mind in turmoil. I think everyone should read it and then know that is how literary fiction should be. Did you like it? I didn't get on with it that much. This might have had something to do with having to read it for a course and pick it to bits with our fingernails afterwards in a seminar in the company of someone who was finding fault with the eating disorder detail. In terms of a psychological study of someone losing the plot it is pretty impressive, however. Not sure about the repetition of that poem - I found that a bit overegged. Sparkle: So glad to hear you enjoyed The Driving Seat - it's one of her weirder works as a matter of fact. I'd recommend you try Memento Mori, Aiding and Abetting and A Far Cry From Kensington, all of which are more conventional novels in comparison but are utterly wonderful. No one does ice cool irony better than Muriel Spark. I'm just about to start this, by the way. Anybody know what it's like?
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Post by smellslikesomeghost on Sept 2, 2004 20:37:13 GMT
Did you like it? I didn't get on with it that much. This might have had something to do with having to read it for a course and pick it to bits with our fingernails afterwards in a seminar in the company of someone who was finding fault with the eating disorder detail. In terms of a psychological study of someone losing the plot it is pretty impressive, however. Not sure about the repetition of that poem - I found that a bit overegged. Yup, I really love this book. I may even say that it's one of my very favorite books ever. I think the writing is perfect, not a word wasted. As someone who strives to write fiction I am in awe of her word mastery.
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Post by Torifuckingamos on Sept 8, 2004 9:52:06 GMT
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Post by Sparkle on Sept 17, 2004 9:50:16 GMT
Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections comes very close to living up to its hype. Just finished it! It's very long, but I was addicted. I'm now cracking on with the Schlink book, Trollte, and enjoying it very much so far.
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Post by Steven on Sept 22, 2004 23:13:06 GMT
Ooh, I want to reccomend you a book; "The trick is to keep breathing" by Janice Galloway. So good that Garbage named a song after it. I'm reading Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood at the moment. I'm not even close to the end, but I'm going to recommend it anyway because so far I'm finding it fascinating.
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Post by klee on Sept 23, 2004 8:07:44 GMT
I'm reading Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood at the moment. I'm not even close to the end, but I'm going to recommend it anyway because so far I'm finding it fascinating. Ooh, I read that last week. I loved it, but remembered that, at the time of publication, it got quite a lot of criticism for being too openly satirical rather than 'novelesque'. Some critics thought it was polemic rather than fiction. I, on the other hand, found it horribly plausible.
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Post by keaty on Sept 23, 2004 11:43:11 GMT
Beautifully written and heartbreaking. Treats a very sensitive subject (war atrocities) in a very human way. One of only two books to make me cry. I studied this at the start of my A Level course and I really, really hated it. Extremely readable, but when you actually analyse it you realise it's actually quite shit. It seems to owe rather a lot to The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi, which I am reading at the moment.
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Post by JonSpice on Sept 26, 2004 11:18:52 GMT
also, Kate Atkinson "Behind The Scenes At The Museum", Alex Garland "The Beach" and Patricia Highsmith "The Talented Mr Ripley" (which I'm still in the opening stages of reading, so please don't spoil anything for me)
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Post by Cherubic on Sept 26, 2004 11:48:57 GMT
I'm just about to start this, by the way. Anybody know what it's like? I tried to read this, and never really got into it, though it was a long while ago,so maybe I was too young for it. It just didn't capture my interest in the way I thought it would. I remember the world seemed very flat and unreal. Like it was only written for people who'd lived through the end of the Raj and knew what he was on about. I might try again though, especially since my mother spent her entire pregnancy with me watching the Granada serial.
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Post by PopIdle on Sept 26, 2004 17:13:58 GMT
Anything by . . . The other month I ploughed my way through A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. 1800 pages (or something like that) but worth every second of it. Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible is also wonderful but will make you exceedingly unhappy and anti-colonialist (in a right-on way, of course). I've nearly finished A Suitable Boy and am loving it. I was pretty intimidated by the 1800 pages, but it's really easy to read and really gripping. I also really liked The Poisonwood Bible.
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Post by trollte on Sept 27, 2004 12:13:43 GMT
I studied this at the start of my A Level course and I really, really hated it. Extremely readable, but when you actually analyse it you realise it's actually quite shit. It seems to owe rather a lot to The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi, which I am reading at the moment. Ah well... subjective and all that. Primo Levi is a fantastic writer and The Drowned and the Saved is a very important book. His collection of short stories The Periodic Table also has some gems in it. I particularly love the story about aliens who watch from space, but the resolution of their telescopes means they can only make out things that are over 50m long. Hence they think that ships are creatures and they record their movements, and it's all very endearing.
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Post by Mimternet on Aug 10, 2005 9:32:37 GMT
I recommend Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Conner. It's set aboard a ship sailing to New York during the Irish famine of the late 1840's. The characterisation is simply incredible. A really very good book.
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Post by Vinegar Tits on Aug 10, 2005 23:46:02 GMT
I recommend anything by Poppy Z. Brite, especially Exquisite Corpse and Drawing Blood. Since she stopped writing horror, her New Orleans trilogy - the Value of X, Liquor and Prime - has been very good. Also, I just borrowed Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre from my sister and am thoroughly enjoying it so far.
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Post by jode* on Aug 12, 2005 10:49:59 GMT
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